One of the crew asked, “Should we melt him too?”
“Nah,” Number 21 replied. “This was just his screen test. Boss says he’s still got some real important parts to play.”
And then everything went black as I fell back against a tower of mac-and-cheese boxes.
Chapter 8
AS I CAME to, I could feel the henchbeasts’ high-tech restraint device squeezing me from my chest down, holding me to the floor.
“Can we make a deal?” I pleaded to the two shadowy figures standing over me-and then, um, I became about as embarrassed as I’ve ever been in my fifteen adventure-filled Earth years.
What was holding me to the floor was not some alien-tech, carbon-fiber straitjacket, but a whole mountain of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese boxes that I’d knocked on top of myself when I passed out.
And the two figures standing above me weren’t alien henchbeasts, but two twelve-year-old skate kids.
“You mean you want us to join your crew?!” asked the shorter chubby one.
“Dude, that’s so stoner!” said the taller skinny one.
“Yeah, when you jumped up and the monkey dude with the big space-gun blasted you and you fell! Whomp, dude! Stomped like a narc! And those guys in the weird bug suits with the cameras? Totally awesome FX.”
“You,” I said, looking down the aisle at the brown stains on the floor that had been some of their fellow humans not long ago, “are insane.”
“And you, dude, are a magnate! When’s the show going to be on? Are you guys on YouTube?”
“You guys own both Jackass movies, don’t you?”
“Dude. And T-shirts,” he said, lifting up his buddy’s sweatshirt to show an “I Jackass” decal.
I like humans; I truly do. But, sometimes it amazes me their civilization ever got off the ground.
Chapter 9
MY FRIED HEAD and body were starting to feel better as I crossed the parking lot back to my motorcycle. Pregnant women were still streaming into the store to look at the empty fish-food and motor-oil displays, but at the moment I was too bummed about losing my first battle against Number 5’s crew to continue my investigation alone.